The CBS TV program 60 Minutes TV reports on the problem of electronic waste in the United States being illegally exported to places like Guiyu, a town in southern China.

Read the article here : http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/06/60minutes/main4579229.shtml

Watch the video here : http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4586903n

It is (or definitely will be) a problem in Trinidad and Tobago given our growing use of computers and cell phones. What happens to our e-waste in Trinidad and Tobago?

(Hat Tip : Boing Boing Gadgets )

Google Image Search will be hosting the LIFE photo archive (up to 10 million photos). You can do various searches from the Google LIFE archive page. Some Trinidad and Tobago related photos (mostly from the 1940s) :

• photo of Queens Park Hotel from the Queen’s Park Savannah, 1941
• Dr. Eric Williams, 1958
• Calypsoian “The Growler”, 1941 (hear a sample of “Too Botheration” on Amazon.com)
• Memorial Park, 1943
• Ambar’s House, one of the Magnificent Seven buildings (here’s another photo)
• Donald R. Griffin, 1965 at the New York Zoological Society’s Tropical Research Station (now known as The William Beebe Tropical Research Station )

See LIFE photos tagged with Trinidad.

The Ministry of Public Administration (MPA) has advertised in the daily newspapers for positions in the Trinidad and Tobago Network Registry Centre (TTNRC).

Ministry of Public Administration ad for IT positions in the Trinidad and Tobago Network Registry Centre

What is the TTNRC? From the ad :

“The Trinidad & Tobago Network Registry Centre (TTNRC) is being established with primary responsibility for the administration of the Trinidad & Tobago Country Code Top Level Domain (.tt CCTLD) Registry. The TTNRC’s funclions include the development, operation and maintenance of a National Domain Name System (DNS) infrastructure, including related technologies, policies and best practices, facilitating the expansion of online communication and information exchange and ultimately creating new channels for commerce. The TTNRC will be a functional department of the National ICT Centre within the Ministry of Public Administration.

The ad then lists three positions available (links take you to the Trinidad and Tobago Government Human Resource website)  :

• Manager
• Domain Registration Officer
• Technical Analyst
• Senior ICT Specialist, External ICT relations

The deadline date for applications is given as November 17th, 2008.

The implication from the notice implies that the Government of Trinidad and Tobago via TTNRC will (or wants to) administer and run the .tt ccTLD currently run by the Trinidad and Tobago Network Information Centre (TTNIC).

For more background behind the running of .tt, read the Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society’s “Interview with the TTNIC administrator“

The TTCS will be having an online meeting on Monday 3rd November 2008 at 7:30pm
via Skype. The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society skype account is
“trinidadtobagocomputersociety“. Those with Skype accounts who wish to participate, add your Skype contact to the “trinidadtobagocomputersociety” Skype account or email admin at ttcsweb d.ot org with your Skype ID. Please confirm by email that you will be participating at this online meeting.

The focus of this online meeting is to discuss the draft Trinidad and Tobago Government Omnibus Technical
Standards (eGOTS) which describes the technical standards in the areas of

• networking  (e.g IPv4, 802.11g, WebDAV)
• data integration  (these relate to the format of the data being transferred including file format types e.g DOC, PDF, MP3)
• application / presentation  (e.g POP3, CSS2, AJAX, RSS)
• security (e.g Kerberos v5, SHA-256, WEP)
• web services (SOAP 1.2, WS-Discovery, WS-Reliability v1.1)

to be used within and by the Trinidad and Tobago Government for the exchange of information between :
Government and citizens (G2C), Government and Businesses (G2B) and Different Government entities (G2G).
Standards are classified in terms of the maturity of their use within Trinidad and Tobago Government systems :

• Under Observation - means that the standard is either on the list to consider or is under active consideration.
• Approved - the standard has been adopted for use within the T&T public sector.
• Deprecated - means that the standard is still in use within the T&T public sector. However, it has been superseded and should not be used on new projects.
• Withdrawn - means that the standard has either been rejected at initial consideration, or withdrawn from use for security or other reasons. All users should move off withdrawn standards

The eGOTS will be discussed at a Ministry of Public Administration (MPA) this week, hence the nature and sudden notice of this meeting.

Nintendo Wii Music for the Nintendo Wii will be available at Amazon.com on October 23rd, 2008. Available in Japan last month, part of the advertising was the variety of instruments available.

Instrument # 29 : the steelpan! (30 second youtube video)

The steelpan is also featured in the video trailer/ad for Wii Music on Amazon.com (1 minute and 5 seconds in). Nintendo has probably done more to popularise the steelpan, using it in Super Mario World (youtube video : 32 seconds in) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in the early 1990’s.

There have been several updates to popular plugins recently :

• Adobe Flash Player 10 for Windows, MacOS X and Linux.
• Java SE 6 Update 10 for Windows, Linux and Solaris
• Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 for Windows and MacOS X

The TTCS OSSWIN CD v1.95, a collection of over 100 Free/Open Source software for Windows is available for download. This versions features OpenOffice.org v3, Gimp 2.6.1, Mozilla Firefox v3.0.3 and more. Head to the download page or read below for the changes

Screenshot of OpenOffice.org v3

TTCS OSSWIN CD v1.95 file details

• Date created : October 14th, 2008
• File name : ttcs_osswin_cd_v1.95.iso
• File size : 690 MB (723,947,520 bytes)
• MD5 checksum : 9e5954e32ded61234eee7436721a18da / 9e5954e3 2ded6123 4eee7436 721a18da
• SHA-1 : 69a81c86 91a53ab6 4a227ebb 85048a2c 9450e78c
• SHA-256 : a8eff099 0e0aaf29 a046228c ca309016 68c342a6 8ac6a45e f3b64ffe 80c69d09

The increased size of the OpenOffice.org v3 installer means more programs had to be cut from the CD. The following were removed from TTCS OSSWIN CD v1.95 :

• Freeciv, SANS, Wackget, Win9x versions of Media Player Classic and Miranda IM

List of programs on the TTCS OSSWIN CD v1.95 :

• Desktop Applications
  • OpenOffice.org 3.0 free productivity suite compatible with all major office suites
  • AbiWord 2.6.4 Free Word processing program similiar to commercial products
  • GanttProject 2.0.7 Gantt chart based project scheduling and management tool
  • Grisbi 0.5.9 personal finance manager
  • 7-Zip 4.57 file archiver with high compression ratio.
  • Rainlendar 0.22.1 displays skinnable calendar on your desktop
  • Programmers Notepad 2.0.8 text editor with special features for coders
  • Notepad2 2.1.19 text editor with the look and feel of Notepad but with more features
  • Sumatra PDF 0.9.3 slim, portable, open-source PDF viewer for Windows.
  • WinMerge 2.10.0 WinMerge is a Win32 tool for visual difference display and merging, for both files and directories.
  • ConvertAll 0.4.2 Unit Conversion program
  • GTD TiddlyWiki Plus 2.1.3 complete wiki contained in a single HTML file.
  • Wikidpad 1.8rc16 Wiki-like notebook for storing anything you can think of to write down
  • TreeLine 1.2.0 store your data in a tree structure to keep things organised
• Educational
  • GraphCalc 4.0.1 an enhanced calculator application that can solve equations
  • Tux Paint 0.9.20b Tux Paint is a free drawing program designed for children
  • Tux Typing 2 1.5.17 “Tux Typing” is an educational typing tutor for children
  • TuxMath 1.6.3 “Tux, of Math Command” is an educational typing tutor for children
  • Celestia 1.5.1 Freeware Educational Astronomy Program
  • Stellarium 0.10.0 Map the night sky on your computer
  • MegaTrack 1.4 track storms on a map
  • Maxima 5.16.3 A sophisticated computer algebra system
  • Childsplay 0.85.1 Childsplay is a ’suite’ of educational games for young children
  • The Babbleback Machine 1.0 Records and Playback voice game
• Games
  • Kobo Deluxe 0.5.1 space ship “shoot-them-up” style game
  • Tux Racer 0.61a Race down the mountain as Tux the penguin
  • Crack Attack 1.1.14 fast-paced puzzle game inspired by the classic Super NES title Tetris Attack!
  • FloboPuyo 0.20 Clone of the famous PuyoPuyo
  • Anagramarama 0.2 Create as many words from the given letters
  • Portable Puzzle Collection r8200 collection of small one-player puzzle games
  • Sokoban YASC 1.435 Yet Another Sokoban Clone - for Windows
  • Pengupop 2.2.2 online multiplayer clone of Frozen Bubble/Bust a move
  • Pang Zero 1.3 fast paced action game that involves popping balloons with a harpoon.
  • NeverBall 1.4.0 tilt the floor to roll a ball through an obstacle course
  • Armagetron Advanced 0.2.8.2.1 action game modeled after the lightcycle sequence of the movie Tron ; supports multiplayer over LAN
  • pouetChess 0.1.1 3D chess
  • Enigma 1.01 find and uncover pairs of stones. Based on Oxyd
  • Critical Mass 1.0.0 space shoot’em up game with gameplay similiar to Galaga
  • Space Invaders OpenGL 0.6.1 An OpenGL version of the classic arcade game
  • LBreakout2 2.5.1 Use your paddle to aim a ball at bricks until all bricks are destroyed
  • FooBillard 3.0 OpenGL-based billiards (pool) game with realistic physics, AI-player and many gametypes such as pool carambol or snooker.
  • SuperTux 0.1.3 a 2D jump ‘n run sidescroller game.
• Graphics
  • GIMP 2.6.1 bitmap editor suitable for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
  • Paint.NET 3.36 image and photo editing tool for Windows XP and greater
  • Blender 2.47 3D modeling, animation, rendering application
  • Dia 0.96.1-8 A diagram creation program program similiar to “Visio”
  • Cornice 0.6.1 Image Viewer for both Linux and Windows
  • Inkscape 0.46 scalable vector graphics format (SVG) drawing tool
• Internet
  • Mozilla Firefox 3.0.3 Award-winning Web browser that’s fast, secure, and easy to use
  • Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.17 powerful e-mail and newsgroup client.
  • FileZilla 3.1.3.1 fast FTP and SFTP client
  • Halite 0.3.1 download files via BitTorrent, a client file-sharing protocol created to overcome the obstacles of transferring large files over the Internet
  • Thingamablog 1.1b6 standalone blogging application
  • Kompozer 0.7.10 a WYSIWYG HTML editor to create/edit webpages without necessary knowledge of HTML
  • tsWebEditor 2.2.20.79 text editor with syntax highlighting and code completion
  • HTTrack Website Copier 3.43 HTTrack is a free and easy-to-use offline browser utility.
  • Miranda IM 0.7.10 A multi-protocol instant messenger (IM) client
  • Poptray 3.2 POP3 Mail checker
  • Juice 2.2 The cross-platform podcast receiver
  • wxDownload Fast 0.6.0 Open Source Download Manager
• Server
  • XAMPP Lite 1.6.8 Bundled web server containing Apache, PHP and MySQL
  • Hmailserver 4.4.1 - Build 273 Free Email server supporting POP and SMTP
• Sound and Video
  • Audacity 1.2.6 Free sound editor
  • Gungirl Sequencer 0.3.1 Sequencer
  • Hydrogen 0.9.4-svn Advanced Drum Machine
  • VirtualDub 1.8.6 VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility
  • MusikCube 1.0 Music “library” application similar to iTunes
  • CoolPlayer build 219 Audio Player similar to Winamp
  • VideoLAN 0.9.4 VLC is a multimedia player for various audio and video formats
  • Media Player Classic 6.4.9.0 Media Player Classic is an all-in-one video player
• Utilities
  • PDFCreator 0.9.6 easily create Adobe Acrobat® PDFs from any Windows application that can print.
  • ClamWin Free AntiVirus 0.94 ClamWin is a Free Antivirus for Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003.
  • WinPooch 0.6.6 detects and blocks programs (such as trojans or spyware) attempting to modify your Windows 2000 and later system
  • LetMeType v1.81 helps you enter frequently-typed text strings in Windows applications
  • WinDirStat 1.1.2 disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Microsoft Windows
  • InfraRecorder 0.45 CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows
  • PathSync 0.35 an interactive directory (path) synchronizer for windows
  • UltraVNC v1.0.5.1 remotely control a computer over TCP/IP
  • Virtual Dimension 0.94 A free, fast and feature-filled virtual desktop manager for Windows.
  • Virtual Magnifying Glass v3.3.1 screen magnification tool for Windows
  • TaskSwitchXP 2.0.11 replacement for the standard Windows Alt-Tab dialog
  • Folder Size 2.4 adds a new column to the Details view in Windows Explorer to show the size of folders.
  • Safarp 0.5 fast alternative to the Add/Remove Control Panel applet to Win2k/XP
  • WinCalendarTime 1.0 enhanced replacement for the Windows clock in the system tray
  • TrueCrypt 6.0a creates on-the-fly-encrypted disk partitions (hard disk, USB flash drive)
  • KeePass 1.13 KeePass is an open-source password safe
  • AxCrypt 1.6.4.4 File Encryption Software for Windows.
  • winMd5Sum 1.0.1.55 Md5 checker
  • WinRoll 2.0 WinRoll easily manages multiple open windows
  • Launchy 2.1.2 The Open Source Keystroke Launcher for Windows
  • Qliner Hotkeys 2.0.1 easily configure Windows keyboard shortcuts for programs
  • Ant Renamer 2.10 makes easier the renaming of lots of files and folders by using specified settings.
  • AutoHotKey 1.0.47.06 scripting language to automate Windows tasks
  • Vital Desktop 1.42 runs screensavers in the Windows desktop.
  • Drempels 1.5.0 a screensaver that can also be run in your Windows background or “desktop”.
  • Really Slick Screensavers 1.0 a collection of OpenGL-based screensavers
  • Spirex 2.23 an OpenGL based 3D screensaver
  • Run With Parameters 1.1.2 Run windows apps with parameters without using a command

BTW, Blender 2.48 has been released. Hate it when there are software updates just hours after uploading the new version of the TTCS OSSWIN CD.

Update (20 Oct 2008) - comments submitted. View the Google document of the questions and our submitted answers.

The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society will be having a meeting on Saturday October 11th, 2008 from 1pm to 5pm at Engineering Consultants at 112A Edward Street, Port of Spain.

At this meeting, we will be framing our response to the proposed National E-business Policy of Trinidad and Tobago (PDF ; 745K ; 25 pages) .  The deadline for comments is Monday October 13th, 2008.

However, you can make and review the existing comments BEFORE the meeting on the TTCS wiki page on the Draft National Policy on Electronic Business for Trinidad and Tobago .

To add/modify comments on the TTCS wiki page, just select the “Edit this page” button. At the login screen, the wiki password is “ttcswebwiki” ; enter your name and email address to proceed to add/edit the comments on the Draft National Policy on Electronic Business for Trinidad and Tobago.

Comments to the Ministry of Public Admin must use the fastforward’s e-Town Hall Website at http://ebusiness.fastforward.tt/business/townhall

Not much was heard about the Computers for Communities announced by the (then) Ministry of Public Administration and Information (MPAI) last year. See

• Commonwealth computer recycling project in Trinidad and Tobago supports community development
• MPAI announces Computer Refurbishment Project

for more background information. However, the project has now been launched according to a Newsday newspaper article dated Thursday, October 2 2008 :

PUBLIC Administration Minister Kennedy Swaratsingh has urged further collaboration between private and public sector entities to ensure citizens have access to computers in the near future.

He was speaking at the launch of the Computers for Communities programme at the Hilton recently. The programme is a pilot project done by the Ministry and the Commonwealth Secretariat. The project is part of a Commonwealth initiative called the Connects Programme and will eventually affect the entire region.

Microsoft Corporation has agreed to assist the initiative by providing knowledge and experience regarding the implementation of the first refurbishment centre. Swaratsingh, at the launch, commended Microsoft’s participation in the project.

“Computers for Communities, as it is being called, primarily seeks to develop and implement a national and sustainable system for collecting, upgrading and repairing used computer equipment for distribution to communities across Trinidad and Tobago,” a release issued by the ministry stated.

Read rest of Newsday article.

An update to the Trinidadian charged for turning off the computer as spotted in the Newsday newspaper dated September 20 2008 :

A TRIAL date was set yesterday by a Port-of-Spain Magistrate, hearing the case of a former employee of the Land Registry Division, who is accused of tampering with a company computer.

Avinash Bahadoor was told by Magistrate Cheron Raphael, presiding in the Third Court, that the trial will start on November 11, at 10.30 am. Bahadoor is charged with causing a computer to temporarily cease functioning and interfering with the lawful use of a computer sometime in August 2006. He was formally charged by PC Matthews on May 11, 2007.

Sushma Goopiesingh is Bahadoor’s counsel, while Randall Hector is prosecuting. Three witnesses are expected to testify against Bahadoor when the trial commences.

The wording “causing a computer to temporarily cease functioning and interfering with the lawful use of a computer” is from the Computer Misuse Act, which would make this case the third time someone was charged in Trinidad and Tobago under this act.